


Of a Feather: Diaval

by teaandchess



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandchess/pseuds/teaandchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you know, Diaval, that you and I will be in one another’s company for two years come her next birthday? Though I do find it rather amusing that I’ve not been tempted to turn you into a chicken yet. Shall we try for her birthday?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of a Feather: Diaval

**Author's Note:**

> set during the first two years of aurora's life

  It was going to be a long sixteen years. Truthfully, sixteen years is a long time to spend in anyone’s company, let alone _hers_. A long time to keep up the gruff wall of servant and mistress. Diaval certainly wasn’t fond of doing every bidding his dark mistress thought up.  That she chose to watch over the girl Aurora, keep her just safe enough to assure her revenge would be complete when she turned sixteen, was her own business. At the very least she didn’t ask him to be cruel to the child.  
    Raven or not, he wasn’t fond of tormenting children.  
   Farmers, however, were quite another story. Give him a farmer any day and he’d peck their eyes out for bashing his brothers and sisters with brooms and capturing them with nets. Not that _she_ ever let him. She kept him busy with watching over Aurora; never mind that he didn’t enjoy being smacked with gobs of oatmeal the child ate, being grabbed at by those chubby little hands, and then there was the constant “birdie!” calls in that sweet but pipingly high voice.  
    Diaval hadn’t known that as a raven it was possible to get a headache.  
    Still he liked this Aurora. The girl was a welcome distraction from his daily flights to see what King Stefan planned. Nothing good would come of Stefan’s workers and their iron and he knew it down right down in his flight feathers.  
    A possible war was so unpleasant to think of that as the months crawled by, Diaval found he actually liked to occupy the rest of his time by watching the child instead unless he was ordered not to.  
    No one thought much of a raven, he figured.  
    But he knew he was getting sloppy when one of the fairy keepers saw him perched on Aurora’s toy rack and promptly smacked him with a broom.  
     “Get!” the woman in blue shrieked and, nursing both hurt ego and battered feathers, he’d flown off for protection.  
    Though he doubted he’d find any sympathy from his protector.  
    Maleficent was stretched out like a dark shadow beneath the boughs, her staff resting  beside her and her fine cloak tucked close around her body. When he landed on her raised knee, she cocked her head on the side and regarded him with her piercing eyes.  
     “What happened, Diaval?” she asked, amusement tinging her words when she saw his rumbled crest. “Did the rabble ruffle you?”  
    His black beady eyes glared at her and he pecked irritably at her hand when she actually brushed her fingers the wrong way. Maleficent chuckled, her thin fingers flexing. For a second he hoped she would turn him back into a man for a while. At least as a man he could fix his crop of dark hair without dealing with talons and flexing his legs up to his head to do the job.  
    But instead Maleficent just stroked the top of his head, rhythmic flicks of her hand that gently pushed the feathers back into place.  His wings batted in the air nervously. She’d never touched him so intently and so gently. As if she was actually concerned about his wellbeing. Diaval was used to the abuse from farmers; having things thrown at him was a near daily routine before his service to her. Often his mistress treated him with some respect but mostly indifference most days, both to his service and his attempts at sarcastic rebellion.  
    This was different and it made him actually stay still to feel the casual stroking. Idle touches were typical, the sort of a mistress with her pet. He’d not liked them. He wasn’t a pet.  
    But this… this… he… didn’t mind. She was trying to help him and it was more gentle than before.  
     “Do you know, Diaval, that you and I will be in one another’s company for two years come her next birthday?” Her eyes glittered. “Though I do find it rather amusing that I’ve not been tempted to turn you into a chicken yet. Shall we try for her birthday?”  
    He pecked hard at her hand and she laughed, the high pitched sort that bordered on hysteria.  
      “Perhaps not.”  
    The stroking returned, her fingers slipping to gently smooth the blue-black pinion feathers and he lifted his wings to let her. Oddly, he felt himself slipping into a trance-like state, enjoying it.  
     “So long to wait,” Maleficent murmured. “Yet all I have is time. To spend with you, apparently.”  
    With her other hand she pulled her cloak tighter around her thin body.  
      “How I miss them. They kept me so warm, come the cold months,” she muttered, shoulders shifting uncomfortable. Diaval watched her, confused, and saw the movements she made were similar to when he went to preen.  
    He realized she was shifting to accommodate the phantom feel of her stolen wings.  
    Her wings. She’d never spoken about them and he’d only heard the stories of what she had once been from the few creatures who would dare to talk to him. The stories only let him know the very slightest of details that were, in truth, incredibly significant. Like his own mattered to his survival, her wings had been a part of her and they’d been torn from her in a moment of cruelty and betrayal.  
    No wonder she moved so restlessly at times.  
     She missed her wings.  
    For a moment he knew her loss with an intimacy too strange for a bird-man to admit to. His throat extended and he cawed curiously, head tipping this way and that as he hopped on her knee. Maleficent’s hand dropped from his back and she turned her face abruptly, rolling to her side.  
     “Go away, Diaval. I need to rest.”  
    He knew that for the lie it was but obediently flew from her knee to one of the boughs overhead. Head cocking left and right, he cawed again and then saw what he wanted in the dense branches that were heavy with leaves and flowers.  
    It took a few snips of his beak and then the lighter of the branches fell behind Maleficent. True to her nature, she ignored him in favour of watching the cabin in the distance, dismissing him. But Diaval occupied himself by bouncing from branch to branch, snipping off the smallest pieces.  
    When he was at the topmost, he looked down at what he created and ruffled up his feathers in his pride.  
    The fallen branches had formed spindly wings with leaves for feathers on the ground behind her. The least he could do to try to see what she might have been with the wings before.  
    But the longer he looked at his handiwork, the more he realized she wouldn’t notice what he had done to bring her a little bit of her old self back. The longer he felt her disinterest, the more it unsettled him until he couldn’t stop himself from batting his own wings. Diaval squawked, ruffled his feathers up in a brisk rise, and winged off from the top branch to return to his watch over the cursed child.  
    To try to forget that his mistress would likely never find joy in flight, something that he took for granted as his right.  
    The thought saddened him and for the first time he felt pity for his dark mistress.


End file.
